The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
